


Open hand or closed fist would be fine

by clear



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (light descriptions of bruises and injuries but no more violence/gore than that!), Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, Florist!Oikawa (just a little), Injury, M/M, Magical Dueling, What's the tag for the Specific Brand of fic where A patches up B after a fight bc. Yes, tattoo artist!Suga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29694195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clear/pseuds/clear
Summary: “What thefuck,” he demands as he snaps the door open, “have you done to myhome?”Tooru smiles down at him, looking as though he is completely unaware and unbothered by the hanging plants attempting to choke him and the potted hydrangeas spouting a noxious purple gas into the air around him.“Hi, Kou.” There’s an easy grace to his posture—his hips are cocked and he’s swaying just a little with a relaxed curve to his body that matches the smile on his face, smug and completely innocuous all at once. He continues with a lilt to his voice, “Can I come in?”
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 10
Kudos: 38
Collections: OiSuga Valentines Exchange 2021





	Open hand or closed fist would be fine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NorthernSol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthernSol/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, Alex!
> 
> I was thrilled to get the chance to write for you, since a lot of the prompts you had are some of my own absolute favorites!! I tried to work in as many as I was able to because you had such an excellent list. I'm so sorry it's belated, but I really appreciate your patience and I hope you like it! ♡
> 
> A special thank you to the mods as well, who were very kind and patient with me and for also putting on such a stellar event! (A true win for Oisuga Nation!!!)

It’s just past 1:30 when Koushi feels the wards stretching tight over his skin.

It’s just past 1:30, and there is someone at his front door.

He’s not quite sure which is more annoying—the fact that it’s come when he’s not asleep, or the thought of it happening when he _was_. Regardless, though, he figures it’s probably someone drunk and trying their keys into his apartment (even though it’s _Thursday_ and not officially the weekend yet), so he turns back to tablet in his lap and continues to sketch. He catches the twitch of a tail out of the corner of his eye, the sleepy kneading of claws into the blanket over his legs, and he pauses again for a brief moment to scratch between Minnaloushe’s ears.

The light in the living room is warm and low, and Koushi feels lulled by the muffled clatter of the dishes doing themselves in the kitchen, the ticking of the clock on the mantle charmed to show the sky instead of the actual time on its face; feels completed by the hummings of magic settling comfortably around him in the space of his existence. He appreciates nights like this—as thunderous as the shop gets sometimes, as much as he loves the boisterous people he works with, he wouldn’t trade these quiet pockets to himself for anything.

Minnaloushe feels it first and _intensely_ , more sensitive to magic and tied to the apartment’s protective spells as he is. He’s on his feet and yowling, back arched and tail fluffed to twice its size when the sensation of his front door wards being _shredded_ open hits Koushi. It sounds like the abrupt shattering of glass ringing brittle in his ears, and sears hot over his skin like someone has snapped a rubber band over his entire body. Magic gathers tight in his palms on instinct, but he forces himself to be controlled and cautious as he tiptoes carefully to the door.

He spells the door transparent from his side, and isn’t sure whether to collapse in relief or tremble with rage. Minnaloushe seems to be doing more than enough of the latter between his ankles, spitting with eyes flashing between molten shades of suspicion and anger.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he demands as he snaps the door open, “have you done to my _home_?”

Tooru smiles down at him, looking as though he is completely unaware and unbothered by the hanging plants attempting to choke him and the potted hydrangeas spouting a noxious purple gas into the air around him.

“Hi, Kou.” There’s an easy grace to his posture—his hips are cocked and he’s swaying just a little with a relaxed curve to his body that matches the smile on his face, smug and completely innocuous all at once. He continues with a lilt to his voice, “Can I come in?”

 _Of course not,_ Koushi wants to say, to spit out the words like they’ll rinse the sour taste of anger in his mouth. Feeling the frayed bits of magic scraping freely against his skin now, he knows the repairs on his securities are going to take _days_ , even with intense focus and Minnaloushe’s help. Days he doesn’t really _have_ since his weekend is booked solid with clients at the tattoo shop. He feels the tension gathering behind his eyes with the beginnings of a headache already, and when he closes them he can imagine the shape of the words in his mouth: _Fuck_ right _off, thank you very much._

What comes out instead is, “Haven’t you already?”

 _Fuck_ Tooru and his insanely powerful magic. _Honestly._ The man is messier than a full trashcan in a windstorm.

These words play on loop in Koushi’s head as he tries to ignore the way the other’s smile brightens as he edges in past him in the doorway into a home that still hasn’t quieted down from its thorny _intruder-alert_ tactics that set his entire body on edge and make him viscerally sick with a danger response linked to his core.

He does his best to focus his magic enough as the door closes, to turn it into something soothing as his palm warms on the front doorknob. His fingers are careful and deliberately soothing as he slots the locks back into place, trying his best to stopper the flow of chaos all around him.

 _It’s alright,_ he tries to say without so many words, _I’m fine, we’re all fine._ And then, a little more forced: _The guest is welcome here._

 _Welcome_ being a completely relative term, of course.

With the worst of the home magic soothed after a few minutes—he’ll take a better catalogue of the damage in the morning, or maybe he’ll make Tooru do it since he seems to be powerful enough to make messes without batting an eye—he lets out a long sigh and turns around into his apartment.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, hoping his question sounds more pointed to the other than he thinks it comes out. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be stupid at _1:30 on a Thursday morning_?”

Tooru’s back is facing him, but he inclines his head a little as he rolls his shoulders, the very picture of casual. Even Minnaloushe has mellowed out, and has cautiously approached to rub against his leg. His face presses against Tooru’s calf more insistently once he catches the other man’s scent and magic, and Koushi has to stifle a scoff. _Traitor,_ he thinks, and hopes the familiar gets the message somehow.

He says it again in his head, a little louder, for the tiny part of his brain whispering that Tooru looks like he belongs here, among all of his calm domesticity and creature comforts.

“You were on the way home,” Tooru answers, and his voice sounds so flippant and glossy on such an obvious lie. Koushi lives in the opposite direction from him—Tooru’s nested in an open concept in the newer, trendier magical district a ten-minute walk from work at his family’s shop and even less for all of his delights and conveniences.

And Koushi lives even further away from his… _evening_ job.

Tooru still hasn’t turned to face him completely. He’s squatting on the floor now, lavishing Minnaloushe in such decadent attentions that Koushi can hear the cat purring from feet away, but he isn’t as convincing as he thinks.

Not when Koushi’s become an expert at reading him for so many years—once upon a time as a means to victory, now for a… _different_ sort of win. Sometimes. When he’s not blundering about punching holes through Koushi’s spells with the brute force of his unchecked power.

He stops. Narrows his eyes at the other man’s broad back, where it’s hunched over like a wilted stem. He’s favoring his left side. His fingers tremble lightly as they drift over glossy black fur.

_Fuck._

“You bastard,” Koushi sighs, and this time he _knows_ it doesn’t come out pointed despite the anger welling up inside of him. He closes the gap between them in a couple short strides and curls a hand around the back of Tooru’s neck. His fingers drift through the short hair of his nape, chestnut hair feeling downy and warm. He feels the slow press of a head against his thigh as Tooru leans into it, drinks in the warmth of Koushi’s magic as he slowly pours it into him, as he _lets_ it into him.

Koushi focuses the threads of his power over Tooru’s skin, _under_ it like he’s working on any other client, soothing but quietly searching until he finds _it_. He gasps a little at the force and size of it, a gnarled abscess on the core of Tooru’s magic that starts in his right hand and radiates up his arm, over the side of his wrist and face. In his mind’s eye, Tooru is a doll crisscrossed all over with spiderweb cracks and one rough pull away from shattering.

So Koushi _pulls_.

 _“Shit!”_ Tooru yelps, the noise high and tight as he collapses fully against Koushi’s leg. All at once, his glamour drops away, and the injuries he’s harboring bloom across the surface of his skin, looking strange and harsh in the warm glow of his living room. Mottled purples and greens splatter across the skin of his right hand, Koushi’s sure there will be more up the length of his arm under his jacket, and he’s not even sure he wants to _look_ at his face right now. “What the _hell_ was that for?”

“For lots of things you deserve, probably,” Koushi answers dismissively. He leans down and curls Tooru’s left arm around his shoulders and hoists him up when the other gets his feet up under him again. “For tearing up my wards. For pissing off my cat.” He feels the wellspring of his anger bubble up a little easier now, and he hip-checks him lightly as they struggle to the bathroom together. “For coming here and playing around and not _immediately telling me you were_ this _injured_.”

Tooru lets out a little whine in response to the way his body jostles, but manages half a laugh. His head rolls back a little with it, and Koushi sees as the lamps in his bedroom flare to life that his warm brown eyes are glazed over. God, he probably _hurts_. “Aw, Kou,” he manages, tripping over his feet a little as they finally duck into Koushi’s bathroom. “You _do_ care.”

“Of course I care,” he huffs in reply as he all but drops the other onto the covered toilet. He flicks on the lights and immediately spells the cabinet under the sink deeper, calling up the inventory he keeps all of his more severe first aid supplies. He reaches his entire arm in and starts grabbing salves, tinctures, rags, and gauze, all with his own fingers starting to tremble a bit. “Are you stupid?”

“According to you, that _is_ on my schedule right now. Just not _here_ , apparently.”

Koushi rolls his eyes, but dumps his armload of bottles onto the sink counter beside the toilet. He pushes the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows and washes his hands, then takes a few slow breaths to center himself. He watches the lines and runes inked onto his fingers start to glow, and wrap his hands in gossamer swaths of minty blue, protecting and preparing them for what’s to come.

When he turns back around, Tooru’s eyes are locked on his hands, and he’s doing a very poor job at hiding his obvious pleasure and amusement. Koushi narrows his eyes and warns, “Save it.” He’s not in the mood to indulge him right now.

Tooru tilts his head back again and _laughs_ , and it’s such a clear delighted sound that it almost seems like nothing is wrong. Koushi tries not to think too hard on that, but feels heat prickling the tips of his undoubtedly-pink ears all the same.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Though his voice is innocent and syrupy sweet, it’s spilling over at the edges with sheer satisfaction that borders on smug. Koushi pushes it from his mind instead, and moves in front of him to carefully take the other’s face into his hands. He turns it gently in the light to inspect it, slowing down when Tooru hisses at the movement. The right side is swollen and hot to the touch where his palm meets jaw, and now that he sees it more clearly his face is a veritable garden of blooming bruises.

His cheek already sports a bouquet of dappled carnations, spots from busted capillaries over his face. It overlaps with dustier shades as Koushi’s eyes drift higher, turning deeper purple the closer it gets to his eye, which is hurt, but not the worst he’s ever seen. Thankfully it’s not swollen shut and no vessels are broken, and the delicate skin of Tooru’s lid flutters as he brushes an assessing thumb over his brow bone. Koushi tries not to get caught on the dark thicket of his lashes resting against vaulted cheekbones, tries not to imagine his swollen, split bottom lip red from _anything_ but this. Desire is a complicated thing that twists around itself and all his other emotions, a gnarled root system growing deep in the mercurial soil of their shared history and nourishing itself on whatever it can get. Staring one another down at either end of a back-alley dueling lane, separated by fifty feet and tension as thick as the hexes prepped on their tongues and twin vicious hungers to come out on top; or whatever is going on _here_ , in the quiet intimacy of Koushi’s bathroom where they’re wrapped up in each other in a way that feels _right_ but a situation that’s _wrong_.

“ _Gods_ , Tooru,” he says with a sigh that pushes hard against the back of his teeth and catches on something in his throat that turns his voice a little thick. “What _happened_ to you?”

Tooru’s hands make a slow rise to settle on the backs of his thigh, on the small of his back, and the heat and power of them presses through his pajamas and into his skin. Koushi thinks of the back of Tooru’s neck, of warmth and reassurance, and letting people in. He can tell in this moment that something about Tooru falls away, and he sags into him even as his face remains impassive while Koushi works.

“Took a nasty hex to the _face_ , of course,” he answers, his brow smoothing a bit in relief as Koushi’s murmured healing charms wash over him. “Not sure how else you can really read this. Are you sure _you’re_ not the stupid one?”

Koushi snorts as he turns to grab a jewel-toned pot off the counter. “Doesn’t explain your hand or your body or whatever nonsense is going on with your _core_ ,” he argues. He unscrews the cap and dips the tips of his fingers into the pungent herbal salve, and starts to spread it over his cheek with featherlight strokes. Tooru flinches, still obviously tender even after his spells have faded a bit of the bruising, but he does his best to remain still. “It looks pretty nasty.”

“The bastard landed a couple of hits after my face,” he explains, but it comes out closer to a whine. Koushi lifts his chin with two of his clean fingers and begins to salve his jaw and neck. “They were definitely darker than they looked as he was casting them. But my _face_ , Kou—who would want to fuck up something _this_ beautiful?”

“Only _you_ would completely disregard a nasty curse affecting your power and control because someone touched your _face_ ,” Koushi says with a disbelieving laugh. “That’s probably _exactly_ why they went for your face. Years on the underground dueling circuit and the only thing people know about you is that you’re _vain_.”

“’S the only thing that matters,” Tooru insists, opening his eyes and pulling Koushi closer with the arms wrapped around him. He presses his chin into his stomach and looks up at him with a mulish expression. “Who cares about the rest? I have to be pretty for the person waiting for me at home.”

He says it so sincerely that Koushi feels a rubber band pull tight around his ribcage. _Who cares_ about the fact that Tooru’s been undefeated on the amateur dueling circuit for years, that his power and accuracy with magic are lethal weapons he’s honed to relentless perfection with nothing but his own hard work and terrifying determination. _Who cares_ about _any_ of that when there’s a weird little tattoo artist and a weirder temperamental cat to come home to on the older side of town a half hour from where he lives and works in the daytime, but that isn’t _quite_ home the same way.

“You’re ridiculous,” is all he says in an exasperated tone, because his head is doing that funny thing again where he doesn’t say what he really means.

Tooru’s reply is smooth and automatic. Effortless, like the way his fingers squeeze Koushi lightly to emphasize his point. “You wouldn’t love me if I wasn’t.”

And maybe this comes to him without a second thought because he knows he’s _right_ , and expresses it with that same level of confidence and swagger that made Koushi _hate_ him once upon a time when they had been on opposite sides of a duel. If he closes his eyes and thinks hard enough, he can hear the jeers of a midnight crowd swelling around them, the hushed rustle of coins and bills changing hands between rounds, as each of them knock each other down, matching technique and wits and spells blow-for-blow until they were both heaving with it.

It was exhilarating. There had always been a point in the night where everything coalesced into a single, shining point of focus for Koushi, where anything but what was right in front of him fell away and nothing mattered except the tension in Tooru’s grit jaw, the determined fire in his almond eyes setting them near-blazing red, the acrid tang of spell smoke settling heavy on his tongue. It had been about nine months of them matching one another toe-to-toe, week after week, before a part of his brain slipped between the points of his razor-sharp focus and wondered if Tooru’s mouth tasted the same as his, if by the end of it when they always found themselves inches away from each other like the inevitability of gravity, Tooru might be able to feel the way Koushi was buzzing through every part of his body, right down to feeling the thundering throb of his pulse in his teeth every time they did this.

That singular shining thought in the midst of a counter-spell had been enough of an opening for Tooru, who had spent months learning Koushi’s face, his body, the way he moved with such an intense, intimate focus that could only be for duelers or bedfellows. The other bested him cleanly that night, and then Koushi had dragged himself home to this very same bathroom to patch himself up, healing his cuts and bruises and choking down a mix of tea and tinctures to replenish his magical reserves.

He remembers falling asleep that night on the precipice of a great large _something_ , teetering on the knife’s edge of truth that split those two _things_ they could be to one another. It gnawed at him almost constantly, affecting his daytime work and performance against other opponents in the evening for almost a full month, culminating in a spectacular spell-damage injury to the chest that made him say _to hell_ with the whole thing, and quit back-alley dueling altogether suddenly and abruptly.

He’d shut off his brain the night three weeks afterward that he’d met Kuroo for drinks, and he told him with the gleaming satisfaction of someone that thought they knew _entirely_ too much that Tooru had been thunderous in his demands to know _where_ , exactly, the only opponent worth his time had fucked off to.

He’d managed to keep his brain shut off and live a pastoral daytime life at the tattoo shop for the next two weeks, but nothing good ever lasted. It was a sunny Tuesday afternoon when he was pulled from drawing in his studio by their college-aged receptionist, Shouyo, standing in his doorway and looking about a decade older than he’d left him. He’d informed him woodenly that there was someone here to see him that refused to make an appointment for a consultation. Even now, Koushi still isn’t sure if he should have been more or less surprised to have found Tooru standing tall and pristine in the cozy interior of a place that was all _Koushi’s_ , looking every bit like he didn’t belong.

 _“I want_ those _,”_ Koushi remembers him saying in that imperious tone of his, instead of any greeting at all. He’d gestured to Koushi’s own arms, where delicate channeling spells fanned out in careful black runes along the slender bones of his fingers and the backs of his hands, trailing up along his wrists and along his ulnae among the other shifting ink of his full sleeves. He knew the rumors people talked about them when they came to watch—some thought the conduit tattoos were cheating, but they were no more a demonstration of his sharpened skillset than someone’s practiced ability to deliver a spell that shattered or slipped through their opponent’s defenses. He simply honed a different skillset, found a way to circumvent the rules without really getting around them—he would go to his grave arguing that _strategy_ was more important than _force_.

He’d scoffed at the thought, though, looking at Tooru’s bare, pristine skin and the preppy mint blue of his t-shirt boasting the name of his family’s floral design shop in the part of town that was infinitely nicer than this neck of the woods. Most people began their foray into tattoos with quotes, animals, or constellations— _not_ intense channeling spellwork blended with aesthetics to tap deeper into one’s own magical core. _“No.”_

 _“How much for it?”_ Koushi supposed he should have never put it past Tooru to make every sort of tattoo faux-pas within five minutes of encountering him, considering he made a nighttime career out of being a royal pain in his ass when he apparently wasn’t trimming flowers.

And because he’d wanted Tooru to fuck off and never come back, Koushi began doodling on a napkin on the corner of Shouyo’s reception counter with a ballpoint pen as he told him, _“Ten thousand.”_ It was intense, complicated spell work that required a deep connection with the person being tattooed, an immense level of skill and focus to draw those conduit paths out of the most vulnerable part of them, and was basically all theoretical given that he’d only done it on himself as a hobby when he’d come across historical precedent for it from arcane sorcerers in the misty European highlands.

It was a _ridiculous_ figure. Shouyo had choked on the noodles he was trying to eat surreptitiously between them (since Tooru had, of _course_ , interrupted the poor kid’s lunch with his histrionics) as soon as he’d said it. Koushi had done it before, with assholes of a similar variety that he wanted to pass on working with—throw out some nonsense price too high to even justify, even with his level of skill, and watch them attempt to swagger out of the store with their feathers obviously ruffled.

But perhaps seeing Tooru for once in the daytime, clean and undeniably softer around the edges with the sun shining through his carefully-styled hair was throwing him off. Because he should have _known_ not to underestimate him. He’d had months of playing moves and countermoves with him that he should have seen it coming a mile away when a beatific smile more dangerous than any of his pointy smirks spread across his face, and he’d said, _“Done. When can we start?”_

Koushi takes half a step backwards and takes Tooru’s right arm into his hand, where the lines etched in his skin in fine, black ink glow slightly with the iridescent dove-grey shift of his own magical signature. He probes with his own evaluating spells and finds that none of the pathways are broken or damaged, just clogged with scorched pieces of cursework that probably buckled under the potency of Tooru’s magic, or the defense spells Koushi had slipped in several months ago during his last touch-up. He gently directed his own flow into the passages, scouring the paths as best he could with his fingers fit firmly in the spaces between Tooru’s.

He’s pulled out of it all abruptly when he finds himself sitting down on the tub, skin clammy but his face flushed hot, and fingers tingling unpleasantly like the aftershocks of gripping a livewire. Coming hurtling back to reality like this when he’d been lost in spell work without realizing it feels like whiplash when the slack in the rope tethering his mind to the world snaps tight again. His heart is thundering a thousand beats per minute, and his bones feel almost hollow as his head begins to spin a little. He feels completely weightless and a hundred tons all at once, and he thinks—

“Shit,” Tooru sighs from somewhere in front of him, and well, exactly that. When Koushi’s vision swims into focus, the other is filling a cup from the sink with water. He turns back around and wraps one of Koushi’s hands around it with his own, settling his other steady palm on his shoulder when he notices before Koushi does that he’s swaying. He’s steady in front of him, feeling solid and taking up space again, crowding _into_ his space with clarity and a sure painlessness to his movements that he hasn’t seen yet today. His face is drawn tight into a frown, though, edges dark with concern. “I didn’t realize what you were doing. You _shouldn’t_ have, after the day you had.”

Koushi drinks, and it’s salvation on his sandpaper throat. Such precise, sustained control to scour dark magic out of a thin network of magical channels when he’d had a full day of clients, and the whole _ward_ situation— _yeah_ , Tooru’s right, maybe he’d absolutely overdone it.

But he’s not sure whether he should tell Tooru that he didn’t really realize what he was doing, either. The other man had always brought out the worst (or maybe best) part of him—most of the things he did in the orbit surrounding Tooru Oikawa were things he never thought much about before actually _doing_ them.

He thinks that pushing himself to the limits of magical exertion _(now)_ might officially rival the current reigning champion in his mental catalogue of _Tooru-Related Lapses in Judgment_ , which is pressing his lips to the other man’s as soon as he’d wrapped the tattoos on his arms after spending four months in constant contact with each other—consulting, researching, working, and both pretending like the colors of their magical signatures weren’t trading places right before their eyes every time Koushi sat down to carve paths into Tooru’s soul with needles and bits of his very own _(about sixteen months ago)_.

“‘M fine,” Koushi says, now feeling flushed for a reason that has less to do with magical exhaustion (okay, no, that’s a _lie_ , because it feels like about ninety percent of his body is stretched to its limits right now), and more to do with his mind’s unhelpful conjuring of feeling lips that aren’t his own against his skin.

Tooru doesn’t even have to look at him to clock that as the lie it is, because he simply slants him a look from where he’s in the middle of brushing his teeth. Minnaloushe hops up onto the counter, apparently having sensed that the immediate threat of Tooru’s injuries has passed and he’s probably allowed to panhandle for affection again. Tooru awards him with a scratch under his chin once he’s finished, tossing his toothbrush back in the holder alongside Koushi’s.

He doesn’t bother washing his face because Koushi would give him hell for it after rubbing all those expensive salves into his skin to ease his bruising. Instead, he refills Koushi’s cup and makes him drink it as he cups his face between his hands, casting gentle charms to clean _his_ face and teeth. Koushi feels the wash of Tooru’s magic over him, leagues more precise like his usual casting instead of the out-of-control waves that practically knocked his door off its hinges. The tight wad of anxiety that had seized up in his chest at the first sight of him loosens a bit now.

“It still feels a bit strange,” Tooru explains without Koushi even having to ask. He grabs a comb out of the drawer and leans down to start running it through his silver locks, delicately spelling the product out of it and making it smell like the lavender and spearmint of his usual shampoo. “I still feel pieces of the curse messing with my casting. But I think you took care of the worst of it—I’ll get Hajime to clear out the rest tomorrow.”

Koushi laughs a bit as he sips from his cup and flicks away the hair that’s now fallen into his eyes. “He’s gonna stop doing housecalls if you’re dragging him all the way out here when his physical therapy clinic is _literally_ five minutes from your shop.”

Tooru rounds on him from where he’s combing his own hair in the mirror now, grinning at him wide and predatory and intensely amused. He remembers thinking once how much that smile burned on his skin, how much it felt like the scream of his lungs when he couldn’t suck in enough air, pushed to the limit to best the other in a never-ending quest to come out on top.

“Is that your way of telling me to stay the night, Koushi?”

Koushi snorts into the rim of his cup and pulls his phone from his pocket to glance at the time. _3:00 AM._

A year and a half ago, this would have been around the time that both of them were standing feet from the other, pushed to their limits and entirely drained of magic as the air around them frayed at the edges with the intensity of their match.

Koushi thinks about the line separating two completely different worlds, thin as a needle or a thread of silvery mint that shifts in the light, and finds one last impulse in himself to get to his feet and crowd into Tooru’s space. He smiles, mumbles _I love you_ when he means to say _You’re ridiculous_ , and leans up to kiss him slow and sweet.

A year and a half ago, this would have been around the time that the only thing smoldering hotter in him than his exhaustion was his desire to _win_ , to pull one over on Tooru and come ahead of him for another two weeks until their rematch.

Now, as Tooru pulls him close and wraps as much of himself around him as he can, hoists him by the waist and carries him to bed with the stumbling steps of someone just as worn through, Koushi thinks that perhaps a year and a half as equals is a much better outcome.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and happy Valentine's Day! ♡


End file.
